Just before midnight on New Year's Eve, a coronal mass ejection of historic proportions takes down the power grid and fries virtually every computer chip in the process. As the western hemisphere is plunged into darkness, it is treated to a spectacular light show, but that's the last fun anyone will have for a long, long time, especially for Clay Scott and his close friends and family who are helping him and his wife celebrate their 30th wedding anniversary when the solar storm strikes. Scott, coincidentally, has just finished writing a book about just such an apocalyptic event and quickly comes up with a plan to head south to avoid the most dire consequences of the loss of man's most basic needs and the competition to achieve them.